Former President Donald Trump completed a remarkable reversal of his one-time policy to force China to divest from TikTok or ban the platform domestically.
In August 2020, Trump issued an executive order that would have banned TikTok if the company was not sold within 45 days by its Chinese owners, Bytedance, which he accused of spying on American citizens and harvesting data in a way that threatened U.S. national security.
The order was eventually blocked in U.S. court and not until this past weekend had it been taken up again, when the House passed a bipartisan measure that would force the sale of TikTok within a year or the app would be banned.
Trump in recent months has opposed banning TikTok and called the social media platform less problematic than Facebook, despite Republicans insisting that TikTok is both a grave national security threat and a propaganda tool for America’s enemies to brainwash the country’s youth.
“Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Monday.
“He is the one pushing it to close, and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant, and able to continue to fight, perhaps illegally, the Republican Party. It’s called ELECTION INTERFERENCE! Young people, and lots of others, must remember this on November 5th, ELECTION DAY, when they vote! They also must remember, more importantly, that he is destroying our Country, and is A MAJOR THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!” Trump raged, accusing Biden of trying to manipulate the election by supporting a GOP-led effort in the House to ban the app.
Notably, Trump’s effort to ban the app took place just four months before the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s reversal on TikTok has raised eyebrows even among his closest allies. Steve Bannon, a former aide and campaign manager to Trump, linked Trump’s flip-flop to his meeting with GOP megadonor Jeff Yass, who has billions invested in the app.
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